This blog is about my life as a mother and nanna and about my great family.

Tuesday, 22 November 2016

ANZAC Nurses during World War 1

While
out at my brother's house/dog sitting I watched ANZAC Girls, great
show really liked it. It told the real life stories of 4 nurses
during World War 1 they were both Australian and New Zealand nurses
and this inspired me to do a little research about them and share a
bit about them with the rest of you. The nurses were Olive Haynes,
Alice Ross-King, Grace Wilson Elsie Cook and Hilda Steele

Today
I will tell you a bit about Olive Haynes.

Olive
Haynes was the second child of the Revered James Crofts Haynes, who
came to Australia from Ireland in 1853, and his second wife, Emma
(born Creswell). She was a prolific reader, and played the piano and
the mandolin. She was educated at Tormore House, North Adelaide and
trained as a nurse at the Adelaide Hospital, 1909-12. She did some
private nursing before enlisting in the Australian Army Nursing
Service in 1914.

She
nursed in Cairo then was posted to the island of Lemnos, to a very
basic and inhospitable camp which had been chosen for the embarkation
of troops for Gallipoli and as a respite and clearing station for the
sick and wounded from the Peninsula. In 1916 she went to France, and
served in a number of places behind the Lines. She married Norval
Henry (Pat) Dooley in Oxford (UK) in 1917.

They
returned to Australia in 1918, and settled in Pat’s home state of
Victoria. They had seven children, one of whom had Down Syndrome, and
Olive was involved in establishing a school for the intellectually
handicapped at Ivanhoe, Victoria.

She
also supported a number of charities. During the depression she
helped people who were out of work and “on sustenance”, providing
them with meals and work, and during World War II she worked for the
Comforts Fund. In her later years she supported the Ivanhoe Helping
Hand Association, and was presented with a silver medal to
commemorate 30 years of service to the organisation.